I’m an ex-Army officer – Nigel Farage and Reform have outclassed Labour on defence
It looks like some serious and considered thought has been involved in the formulation of Reform's defence proposals, writes Stuart Crawford
Clacton-on-Sea witnessed a return of something close to Beatlemania on Tuesday when Nigel Farage turned up after his shock announcement that he would stand for election in the Essex constituency. Seldom in modern times has a populist leader captured the public imagination in the same way as has Farage, complete with shouts of 'We love you Nigel' from the crowd.
Since then he has been a permanent fixture on the front pages and on our televisions. The sight of him being showered in banana milkshake by a “model” whilst on walkabout will be one of the defining images of the 2024 election. And now the latest polls have Reform just two points behind the Conservatives. Something seismic could be happening.
With him becoming both a candidate and the party’s new leader after Richard Tice made way, the Reform Party’s General Election policies will perhaps be in for even greater scrutiny than before. Amongst these will be the party’s ideas on defence, so perhaps now is a good time to examine them.
Although their proposals for defence are light on detail, they do have much to be said in their favour. It looks to me that some serious and considered thought has been involved in their formulation.
They include recommendations for the first 100 days of a new government which have much to commend them, proposing an increase in defence spending to 2.5% of GDP within three years and then an increase to 3% within six, a more ambitious target than either of the Conservative or Labour pledges. In addition Reform proposes a pay review to bring military salaries more in line with equivalent civilian ones which will be popular among service people at least.
Personally, I am strongly supportive of their idea of establishing a proper and fully staffed Ministerial Department for Veterans, something that many of us ex-service folk have been urging for many years now, rather than the current arrangement of a desk plus a few secretaries in the corner of somebody else’s office.
What we really need, I would suggest, is a Department for Veterans’ Affairs like the USA and Australia do, to name but two. In the US this department is a federal-Cabinet level agency with sweeping responsibilities for healthcare, rehabilitation, education, home loans, burials and memorials and much more for eligible veterans. It looks like Reform might be advocating something along the same lines.
Their policy also calls for a reform of Ministry of Defence current procurement practices which have been responsible for equipment programme disasters like the Ajax armoured cavalry vehicle, ten years overdue and with most of the budget spent but no vehicles yet in service.
I have written about the need for reform the MoD’s equipment procurement processes countless times in the past and won’t bore you with the arguments again. Suffice to say for the moment that they are no longer fit for purpose and haven’t been for decades. No finer machinery for spending vast amounts of taxpayers’ money to little effect exists anywhere else on the planet. It has got to change.
I am also heartened to note that they wish to take back in-house recruiting for the armed services. Famously, or perhaps infamously would be more accurate, this was outsourced in the case of the army to Capita, who have proved unable to deliver. It appears that sufficient potential recruits are still coming forward, but delays in processing them – often over a year’s wait – leads many to give up and look elsewhere. A return to local recruiting offices in the High Street would be most welcome.
The party also wants to take back control of military accommodation, which was similarly outsourced some years ago. These badly run property management contracts have failed our armed forces, with thousands of homes in poor condition or uninhabitable. To treat those who we, the electorate, often put in harm’s way on our behalf is simply inexcusable.
There are other worthy ideas on other topics, with education for military personnel and revamping the UK’s defence industrial base among them. Interestingly there is no mention of Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent and whether the part is for or against its retention. The Trident system takes a big chunk out of the defence budget and there are arguments for giving it a separate, standalone budget direct from the Treasury, but no mention here. However, the party’s commitment to NATO might cover this, unsaid.
A cynic might say that the Reform Party has the luxury of knowing that it is unlikely to form the government post July 4th and therefore can say what it likes without fear of being held to its pledges. This is probably true, although one should never underestimate the “Farage effect” and what may flow from it in the coming months and years.
Nonetheless, it strikes me that the party’s defence policy has in many ways a better vision and practical suggestions than those of the Labour Party’s policy launched a couple of days previously.
The good news in all of this is that defence has for once moved centre stage in the General Election debate. Long may it continue.
Lt Col Stuart Crawford is a defence analyst and former army officer. Sign up for his podcasts and newsletters at www.DefenceReview.uk
